


you can set yourself on fire

by Murf1307



Series: high rise lights'll read your rights [1]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Agender Character, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Character Death, Comics/Movie Crossover, Darwin is Alive, Gen, Genosha, Past Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Reunions, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 11:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5784376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>October, 2010.</i>  In the aftermath of the destruction of Genosha, Darwin goes looking for the last piece of the puzzle of his past, and Alex has trouble getting a handle on his grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can set yourself on fire

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for a prompt on tumblr; the prompter asked for any ship, set in this au, with the line: “like hell i’m leaving you when you look at me like that.”
> 
> reminder that in this au, alex is a trans guy, and darwin is vaguely agender. it doesn't come up in this one, but it is the case.
> 
> this fic is set 5 years before 'it's a hell of a feeling though'

Armando still isn’t sure what to do.Nobody is — as ridiculous and impossible as Genosha had always seemed, because, what, _an island nation safe-haven for mutants?_ It always seemed impossible, the fact that it _had_ existed had been a comfort.

The Brotherhood of Mutants, vicious and in their defense of this claimed homeland, had been a comfort.Magneto, who talked too much and too radically for many, had been a comfort.

And now it’s gone.The Purifiers and the Sentinels they’d brought blew it all to kingdom come.Magneto is dead, and the Brotherhood have come back to Westchester, taking refuge with the X-Men.

One look under Havok’s cowl, though, and something _else_ had changed, at least for Armando.Unhooded and terrified on a news report, grainy cell phone video as the man dragged Magneto’s corpse from the wreckage, blue eyes and horrified rage as he looked up at an incoming Sentinel, and Armando had _known._

Alex Summers had reminded him, and now the pieces fit together in his head, the night they went to fight Shaw, and Shaw shoved Alex’s plasma down Armando’s throat, and everything had gone to hell.

The question of his past, at least, is answered.And he’s come back to Westchester, too, from the safety of Moira MacTaggert’s compound, because in the wake of tragedy, there’s nothing else to do.The only family he has is human, and the only community he knows is fractured by amnesia and absence.

Petra and Suzanne come with him, because they’re still shell-shocked from the 24-hour media machine covering the disaster, and so does Moira, sharper and angrier than he’s ever seen her.

She’ll have words with Xavier, he knows, sometime soon.

When he arrives, Hank and Sean are there to greet him, enthusiastic and shocked — for them, it’s a minor miracle in the face of the greatest tragedy in mutant history, and it’s an old friend and ally come back from the dead.

They flinch when he asks where Alex is.

“Is he hurt?” he asks.

Sean shakes his head.“Not…physically.Not badly, anyway.It’s kind of a miracle that he’s not — he kept fighting until Raven literally dragged him off the island, from what we’ve heard.”

“Jesus.”He can’t say he’s surprised, though.“Where is he?”

“Bunker, probably.He hasn’t left it much since he got back here.”Hank sighs.“Maybe…maybe now that you’re back, it’ll help.”

Armando doesn’t want to assume what that means, so he just nods.“I’ll try.”

Finding the bunker isn’t so hard, and when he gets to the door, he can hear the impact of Alex’s energy blasts intermittently on the walls, and the door is hot enough to the touch that Armando has to adapt to it.

He opens the door anyway.“Alex,” he says, above the noise of a blast hitting the wall.

Alex whips around and freezes, eyes wide.

Armando drinks in the sight of him: Terrified, a little taller than he remembers, lean and sharp and _God,_ he looks exhausted.His head’s half-shaved, the rest of it falling over the other side to about his chin.He’s wearing a tight suit not unlike the one he’d been wearing in the news broadcast, dark blue-grey with silver detailing. 

God, he’d missed him.

“What,” Alex says, voice raw.“You’re — what the hell is going on?”

Armando sweeps into the bunker.“I saw you, on the news, and I — shit, Alex, I didn’t remember, I woke up in Virginia and had no idea what had happened, barely remembered who I was.”

Alex had been the last piece he’d needed to slot into place.And here he is.

“Don’t — don’t come closer.”

It’s the last thing Armando expects to hear.Alex is staring at him the way a man in the desert stares at water, and Armando wants to come closer, wants to pull him close and start to fix the five years Alex thought he was dead and he didn’t know who Alex was.

“Like hell I’m leaving you when you look at me like that,” he says, a little roughly.

“I could hurt you — I’m not safe to be around, Darwin,” Alex insists, backing away.“I can’t, I can’t deal with risking hurting you.Not today.”

Armando stays where he is.“You’re not gonna hurt me.”

“I’m out of control, I can’t — it’s like I need to drain all of it outta me or I’ll hurt somebody.I _can’t_ let that someone be you.”

“And I said, you’re not gonna hurt me.”

“ _I fucking killed you!”_

Armando shakes his head.“Oh, fuck no, hotshot, you fucking didn’t.”He moves over to him.“Shaw fucking killed me, he just used your energy to do it, because he’s a piece of shit Nazi and we were trying to stop him.”

Alex flinches.“You still died, Darwin.I _felt you die._ ”

“And now I’m not dead.My mutation won out.Just took a while.”Armando is insistent.“You can’t kill me, and you’re not gonna hurt me.”

“I — I wish I could believe that.”Alex sounds miserable, and he’s shaking.

Armando reaches out and touches his shoulder.He’s burning hot to the touch.“You shouldn’t be alone right now.Nobody should.Let me help?”

Alex sags a little at the touch, like the adrenaline is draining out of him.“You really wanna take that risk?”

“I do.”

And Alex lets him.


End file.
